Freedom

by Natty Soltesz

I’d been living behind the abandoned parking lot for a few weeks the day the guy in the expensive car pulled in. I watched from my tent as it cruised slowly through the weed-choked lot. I thought he was trying to avoid the chasms in the old blacktop, but then I realized he was looking for our tents. Even still, I didn’t imagine he was looking for me.  

Our tents were set back a good ten feet into the woods behind the lot, but we weren’t that hard to spot. Still, it was a good location that felt safe, and I was lucky to be there. There were a couple busy intersections nearby where you could spange, a bagel store down the street with a nice Dumpster, and a corner store that sold seventy-five cent  samosas and cheap beer.

The driver got out and walked tentatively toward where the lot became a stand of trees. He was dressed casually and expensively in a pair of designer jeans, white fitted t-shirt and sandals. Handsome guy, well-built, with a really nice haircut. The kind of guy I’m always falling for.

My friends get on me about it: I fall in love with my johns. But I hadn’t done sex work in almost a year, since I’d lived in Tucson.

He looked nice enough, though. Not that I wanted to let my guard down – plenty of people looked nice. But it was the way he stopped right before the curb, as if respectful of our living space.

“Hello?” he called out. I hesitated. After Tucson I’d told myself never again. And it was pretty obvious what he was there for. But still, could he really be there for me? Maybe he was looking for a long-lost brother, or child. Maybe I’m his lost child, I thought, but shook it out of my head: that kind of thinking would only get me into trouble.

Then Bettina came out of her tent, coughing. “What?” she said in her gruff way. She’d been taking a nap after working on her yurt all night.  

“Um…” the man said, still poised at the curb. Maybe he wasn’t being respectful, I thought. Maybe he was afraid, or didn’t want the stink of us on him. But no sooner had I thought that than he stepped forward and held his hand out to Bettina. She looked him up and down.

“I’m looking for…” was all I caught him saying to her. She didn’t take his hand. I heard him say “yay tall” as he lifted his hand up to his chin, then “blue hair” and other stuff I didn’t catch, but by now it was pretty obvious.

Bettina was stonewalling him, though. So I had a decision to make. I could stay in my tent and let Bettina scare him off. Chill till rush hour then head to the highway with my sign, collect some coin then grab a 40 and see who was at the warehouse on the boulevard. My usual thing.

But here was this shiny person looking for me and how could I ever consider ignoring that? And how the fuck had he even found me?

So I came out of my tent. Zipped it up. And when I turned to them he was staring right at me.  

“Carson, this rich guy is looking for you,” Bettina said.

“I heard,” I said. My ankles crackled as I walked over to them. The guy didn’t say anything and his eyes were wide. Bettina looked at me, looked at him, and all but rolled her eyes.

He was enamored with me – that was the word my ex, Chris, would have used. He’d taught me about tricking. “It’s the dream,” he would’ve said. “Get on that rollercoaster. Ride it till it’s played out. Get in the front fucking car and put your hands up…”

Of course, Chris had taught me a lot of toxic shit, too, and I’d had enough trouble riding the John Coaster in the past. Somehow I always wound up tied to the tracks.  

The late-afternoon sunlight shone on the man’s face and made him seem solid or stable, like something I remembered from my childhood but couldn’t quite place. A feeling.

“What’s up?” I said. He opened his mouth to say something but it got stuck in his throat. Now I had to chuckle. Bettina shook her head and walked away. I came closer to him. “Were you looking for me?”

“Yeah,” he said, and smiled, and took a breath. “I…uh…sorry if I’m imposing.” I shrugged. “Because I, uh, I saw you the other day. On the corner, off the 101?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I see a lot of people. Did you give me some money?”  

“I didn’t,” he said.

“Did you want to now?” I said, and I was trying to be this hard-ass but I couldn’t help but smile at him cause he was so cute. “That’s why you came here? You felt guilty? Wanted to make amends?”

“No, I…well, or yeah. I mean, I was wondering if you wanted to spend some time with me. Get something to eat.” He looked at me levelly when he said that. You could almost believe he meant it.  

“Like at a fancy restaurant?” I said. He looked down at his shoes, then up at me. He knew I was fucking with him, and he was letting me, and it made my heart ache, a little.

“Would you want to go to a fancy restaurant?” he said in a soft voice.  

“Not particularly,” I said.  

“There’s a bar a couple blocks from here; the food is good,” he said. I rolled my eyes. A cloud went across the sun and dimmed everything.

“I’m not hungry,” I said. “If you want to fuck me, we should just do that.” I looked up at him. He stared at me.

“Okay,” he said, very frankly. Which was a surprise, but it told me something about him. And he was gorgeous, I now noticed. Handsome, muscular: well preserved for a guy probably in his early forties. So I went back to my tent and ignored my racing heart as I got my bag together. Then I followed him to his expensive car, and got in.

His car smelled like a department store, and once we were on the road I realized how quiet it was – like being in a bubble, completely cut off.  

“So, to my place?” he said, looking sheepish.

“I’m actually really hungry,” I said. He looked confused. “I lied,” I said. 

“Okay,” he said. “That’s fine.” We drove to the bar which was unassuming, inside and out. A happy-hour crowd was forming and people were looking at us kind of hard, which I figured was because he was obviously older and richer than me.  

“My name’s Luke,” he said, and I told him mine. We ordered drinks and food and I watched him, his firm golden throat as he ate and drank, Adam’s apple rising and falling. I thought: he’s beautiful enough to be a movie star. Then I realized the people around us weren’t really looking at me, they were looking at him, and I thought: he is a movie star. But I knew better not to say anything.

Still, being in the presence of someone famous was a trip. There was a cynical way to look at it, and my mind went there: the rich movie star, slumming, buying some authenticity for the night. But the glow of his celebrity was intoxicating and resisting it was impossible. I took a gulp of beer and it warmed my stomach.

“How did you find me?” I asked, and bit into my perfectly juicy cheeseburger.  

“I went back to that intersection. Twice, actually. Yesterday I didn’t see anybody. But today there was a guy with a dog.”

“Daniel,” I said. Luke nodded.

“He told me where,” he said, and took a bite of his salad.

“You must find me really attractive,” I said.

“I do,” he said, nodding.

“Do you pick up a lot of guys off the street?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. I laughed: he kept surprising me. “Not all the time,” he said. “It can be sort of…tricky.”

“Are you married?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Open relationship. My husband is out of town, though.”

“Cool,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, and smiled, and went to take another bite but stopped short of putting it in his mouth and said “How’s a thousand bucks sound? For the night?”

I swallowed my bite of burger and pretended to think about it. I heard Chris’s voice in my head: upsell. But I dismissed it.  

“Sounds great,” I said. The thing was, I wanted to have sex with him. And this was part of the problem. I like sex, and I’m attracted to all types of people, men and women, all ages. But at that point I hadn’t had sex in months – not since I’d hitched to LA. So I felt giddy with anticipation and anxiety as we drove out of the city and into nicer and nicer neighborhoods. Chris’s voice was in my head was saying I was doing it again, and it would be like it was with Doctor Daddy in Tucson, crying in his foyer with five minutes before his wife got home, him threatening to call the cops on me before I managed to gather some pride and leave.  

There were other thoughts, too. Like he could kill me, or beat me up. He’d tracked me down – isn’t that what serial killers did? But the car kept going, winding up into the canyon, along streets that seemed empty but really had mansions tucked away behind gates on private drives. Until he turned on to one and punched a code into a box. My stomach rumbled, from anxiety or maybe just the cheeseburger. We drove up a dark, wooded road until we reached a house that seemed to hang like a glass box over the canyon. Luke lifted the parking break and turned off the car. I heard a coyote howl.

“Home,” he said, and smiled, and his smile was so sweet that I wondered how I could’ve ever been afraid. I leaned into him and let him kiss me. He shuddered a little when his lips met mine – his need, his desire, was obvious, and it was the type of thing that I couldn’t help but respond to. Which made me want to pull away and run off into the canyon. But I was working, now, and so I thought of what Chris would say: Stuff your heart with steel wool.  

He was a good kisser and his mouth tasted like mint. As I ran my tongue over his perfect teeth I wondered what he thought of my crooked teeth and missing molars. Did it turn him on? Should I judge him for it? But then I touched his warm neck and it didn’t matter, because he was beautiful and he thought I was beautiful. Which was what always got me in trouble: the illusion that sex put you on equal footing. Maybe it did, but only briefly, and then the reality of that gap would rise tomorrow like the sun, harsh and unavoidable.  

He took me inside and I set my bag next to the door. He kissed me again, embracing me this time. I felt his body under his clothes and couldn’t believe how well formed it was, but I guess you had to be perfect if you were going to subject yourself to the gaze of millions. The reality of that hit me; how difficult it would be. Even if it made you rich. Especially if it made you rich.

“Do you want to take a bath?” he said.

“Do you want me to take a bath?” I said.

“I don’t care. I took one earlier. I just thought you might enjoy it. And I have to send off a couple emails before I settle in for the night, anyway…”

“Okay,” I said, thinking: he’s being coy. He thinks I’m dirty but doesn’t want to admit it. But I let him show me to the bathroom and it was, of course, huge and opulent with marble floors and a sunken tub. And when he left and I closed and locked the door the feeling of privacy hit me and almost made me want to cry, it felt so good. “Take as much time as you need,” he’d said, and had put some dreamy, ambient music on speakers that must have been hidden in the walls.  

I filled the tub with water as hot as I could get it. Then I stripped off my clothes and checked myself out in his full-length mirror. Maybe it was the ego trip from being pursued by a movie star, but I looked good. I mean, kinda thin, but I’d always had a nice body, and I’d been helping Bettina build her yurt so my muscles were rounded, especially in my shoulders.

I took a shit because I wanted to be prepared. Then I melted into that hot water for a good hour. I almost fell asleep. Then when I realized how long I’d been in there I jumped out and threw on a robe that was hanging next to the door. I hesitated before I came out. Would he be mad I’d been in there so long? What if he was outside the bathroom with a gun, or a knife, or a syringe? But when I went out and found the living room he was just sitting there on the couch. He smiled when he saw me and closed his laptop.

“Was it good?” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Is it okay that I wore this?”

“Sure,” he said, and stood up. He was so tall and built. “I mean, I’m just gonna take it off you, anyway.”

He came over to me and took hold of my shoulders and kissed me, wrapping his arms around me and holding me close. I got that teary feeling again. He sensed it and broke the kiss. Looked into my eyes. Then he untied the belt of my robe and slipped it off my shoulders, dropping it to the floor. He looked me up and down.

“Fuck,” he said, shaking his head.

“What?” I said.

“You’re beautiful, that’s all. I knew you would be,” he said.

“Just from seeing me beg for change in my baggy-ass shirt?”I said. He ran his fingers down my bare side.

“Pretty much,” he said. “You’re so handsome.”

“I think you’re handsome, too,” I said. He cocked his head back. Then he put his hands at his sides.

“Strip me,” he said. I looked him over in his expensive, fitted clothes. He probably had a stylist, a trainer, a nutritionist. And now I got to treat him like a gift they’d prepared for me, and unwrap him.

I lifted his t-shirt, revealing his tanned chest, muscled in the classic way, every ridge and swell in place: the modern ideal of a manly chest. It was dusted with hair that it looked like he kept trimmed. I undid his jeans and pulled them down to his feet. His underwear was light blue which set off his tan skin. His package was full, and growing. I slid those down to reveal his cock – uncut, thickening, the pubes above it trimmed to a neat, short patch. His ball sack was as smooth as anything – I wondered if he paid someone to wax it.

He kicked off his pants, one leg at a time, and then we were both naked and face-to-face. He kissed me again. Our hard cocks brushed against one another, and then we were stuffing our tongues into one another’s mouths and squeezing each other, our cocks pressed between us and throbbing. I wrapped my arms around his strong back and for a moment he lifted me in the air while he kissed me.

We broke apart. Our cocks were leaking and we had twin threads of precum – one connecting my cock to his body, the other connecting his cock to mine.

“Wow,” he said, and that was when I knew the sex was going to be good, that we had it: chemistry, or whatever. And instantly my brain went there: This could be an ongoing thing…you could stay here through tomorrow…he could buy you clothes, take you to a movie premier…”

He got on his knees. He had this gleam in his eye. “I knew it was gonna be big,” he said.

“It’s not that big,” I said.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, hoisting it in his hand and holding it next to his face. He ran his tongue along the shaft, then shifted on his knees to get more comfortable, his gorgeous ass spread out behind him. He sniffed me, licked: really savored it, and it was so hot watching this beautiful, powerful man give himself over to me. I thought: sex is a miracle. That’s why it’s so shameful for people, so regulated and hidden, cause it’s revolutionary.

But I was still just a sex worker, and a reluctant one at that. It was all a fantasy, but it was a good fantasy, and the way his warm lips and tongue suckled the head of my cock made me weak in the knees. He took it all, slowly, inch by inch, down his muscled throat until his face was fully pushed into my groin, his nose obscured by my red bush of pubes. He came off it whimpering, like it was all too much for him to take. His own cock was still hard, with a pink head peeking out of its collar of foreskin.

I touched his head gently as he sucked my cock, running my fingers along the perfect folds and creases of his ears, the brush and sharp lines of his expensive haircut, the ridge of his brow. He looked up at me: the million-dollar movie star with a fat, homeless dick in his mouth.

Thinking about it that way killed the mood, a little. I got distracted and he noticed, and stood up.

“Everything okay?” he said. The tenderness of it went to my throat and I knew I had to get through this without crying, or without him seeing me cry. 

“Yeah,” I said and kissed his neck, as much to hide my face as anything. Doing that made me remember Chris saying that the neck was the most vulnerable place on a person, and that allowing someone to kiss your neck was to demonstrate trust. I kept kissing him, down his neck to his shoulders and his chest. He had a mole on his left nipple – not one that you’d notice from a few feet away but I wondered if it was something that movie people had to cover up for his inevitable shirtless shots.

I dragged my tongue along the ridges of his hairless abs as I got on my knees. He had a nice cock – average sized, but well-proportioned. I held his hairless balls in my hand and gave each one a kiss. Then I pressed my nose into the side of his crotch and inhaled. He smelled, well, kind of like his house: expensive and new.  I licked up his shaft of his veined cock, dipping the tip of my tongue into the folds of his half-retracted foreskin. There was a drop of precum at the tip and as I noticed it, it detached and rolled down his shaft. I caught it with my tongue before it reached his balls, then licked up the trail it had left in its wake.

I looked up at him. His chest was heaving but he smiled back at me. I hadn’t had sex in so long I’d almost forgotten how much fun it could be, how it took you out of yourself and put you in another world for a while – one that was mostly unspoken physical communication.  

I slipped my lips over the head of his cock and, as he watched me, took it whole-hog down my throat. He groaned and turned his face to the ceiling. I still had his nuts in my hand as I held his cock inside me, my throat stretching around the thick base of it. I sucked him for a while on my knees, then he lifted me onto my feet by my armpits. He pulled me into him roughly so that I sort of fell into him and for a moment I thought, This is where it shifts, where he gets aggressive and throws me on the bed and beats me up…

But even though he held me by the neck, and his grip was intense, he just kissed me. And when he pulled apart from me and looked into my eyes I sensed that he was searching for the same measure of trust that I wanted from him. So I smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back. Instead he took hold of my wrist and brought my hand behind his body, to his ass, guiding my fingers into the crack of it. I pushed my fingers in that smooth crevice, reaching lower until I found his slick, tender asshole. He groaned and his eyes got soft. I pressed harder and he rested his chin on my shoulder and said “Yes.” Mr. Movie Star, it would seem, wanted to bottom.

I kissed him as I played with his hole. He had my cock in his hand, stroking and squeezing as if to prepare it to go inside of him. Eventually we broke apart and he smirked at me as he got on the bed, on all fours, presenting himself to me: muscular back, knees planted wide, muscle butt splayed to display his winking, hairless hole. It looked like such a porno asshole. He probably bleaches it, I thought. Maybe he has an asshole specialist to keep it looking perfect. He grinned back at me over his rounded shoulder.

“Eat me out,” he said.

“Yes sir,” I said, and got on the bed behind him. I ate that movie-star ass out for all it was worth (five million for major roles – I looked it up later). Honestly, I’d never been much of a top and had just assumed he would fuck me. But the unexpected turn of events turned me on and I wanted to make the most of it. So I ramped it up slowly, licking all around his ass – up his thighs, along his tan cheeks, down his crack – and taking care to stop just at the rim of his puckering hole to make him anticipate it.

He’d been moaning in a low, quiet way. But then I dove my tongue right into his asshole and the sound that came out of him was throaty, full and maybe just a bit actor-y, but it worked. His hole opened up to let my tongue get deeper and when I felt for his cock it was as hard as hard can be, and you can’t fake that. He was backing up onto my face and his hole kept opening up more. He tasted good, the muskiness of his humanity seeping through the polished surface. When I touched a finger to his hole he backed up into it and suddenly his ass was devouring it. He really wanted fucked, and I was ready. I got up behind him and laid my cock against his smooth ass crack, that he’d somehow managed to tan.

“You want this dick?” I said.

“Fuck yes,” he said, smiling back at me. “Give it to me man.”

“Got a condom?” I said.

“Hell no man,” he said. “Fuck me bareback.” My anxiety welled up. I had to say it.

“I’m pos,” I said. “Undetectable.”

“Perfect, man. I’m on PrEP,” he said, pushing his ass back. “Give me that raw dick.” The rim of his hole gobbled up my cock head. The feeling was like a shot of adrenaline to my heart – it had been so long since I’d been inside of someone. I pushed forward while he pushed back and even though we’d used nothing but spit I slid into him as smooth as silk, inch after inch until my pelvis was flush with his butt.  

“That’s it. Goddamn that’s a big dick,” he said. I felt his hole tightening around me then relaxing. The power of it was intoxicating – an hour or two ago I’d been in my tent next to the highway and now my dick was inside a movie star. I pulled out slowly, watching my fat cock reappear from inside him like a magic trick. He called out as I slammed it back inside. Something took over, then, and I started pounding him with all I had. He was loving it, too, screaming “Fuck me! Fuck me!”, his hard cock not so much bouncing with my thrusts as vibrating like a stretched wire, when he wasn’t giving it quick strokes with his hand.

“I want to see you,” he said, and came off of me. He flipped on his back and put his legs in the air, immediately grabbing my cock and guiding it back inside of him. I held his legs up and started into his gorgeous face, his twinkling eyes, while I fucked him like he was the whore. The harder I went the more turned on he seemed to get, and I was right there with him. We were both heaving and it was ramping up in this uncontrollable way.

“I’m gonna fucking cum, man,” I said.

“Do it. Cum inside me,” he said. His muscled tits were bouncing as I banged into him. He started stroking his cock. “Oh fuck yeah I’m gonna cum too. Fuck!” He started to cum, huge ropes that volleyed out of his cock in time with my thrusts, like I was the pump and he was the spout. At the same time I was cumming inside of him, banging him hard as I unloaded, shot after shot that matched with his. His load shot as far as his chin, Pollock-like splatters that slashed across his perfect torso. It was just too sexy and I had to lean down and lap them up. But before I could swallow he pulled my face to his and we shared it, making out as we passed his cum back and forth on our tongues.

We collapsed, and a little while later we toweled off and went downstairs for a glass of water. He offered me a slice of cake and we ate it as we stood at his counter, still naked, smiling at each other but not saying much. It was really good cake, moist with frosting that wasn’t too sweet.  

“I’m exhausted,” he said, so we went back to his room and he pulled me into bed with him. It was this – him drifting off with me wrapped in his arms – that finally did make me cry, but only just a little. And I did it quietly, so he wouldn’t hear. Once it ran its course I realized how tired I was and how comfortable his bed was. I put one of his fluffy pillows between my knees like I like, then rolled away from him and slipped into sleep.

When I woke it was still dark and he’d embraced me from behind. His cock was hard which made mine instantly shoot up. Then we were fucking again, and being more deliberate and slow about it this time. He rode me for a while, squatting over me so he could see my dick sliding in and out of him. I fucked him from behind, I fucked him standing up, I fucked him on his side. We fell asleep with me inside of him, then woke up in an hour and fucked some more.

When it got light outside he took me to his outdoor shower which had a heated stone floor. I came inside him a third time and then got down on my knees and offered my face to him, which he coated in his load. Then he licked it off and shared it with me.

And then it was time to go. We’d been chatting about my life and his as I got dressed and packed, but he didn’t ask too many questions so I didn’t either. It felt respectful, though, like neither of us wanted to pry. He handed me a wad of cash before I walked out the door. I counted it in the cab. It was more than he’d promised. I watched his gate close as the cab pulled away and felt this ecstatic feeling well up in me. I’d done a good job, and now it was over. I felt free.  

I imagined his life again, how he couldn’t walk down the street without people knowing who he was. Probably he could choose to be anonymous and poor as easily as I could choose to be a famous, rich actor. I mean, weren’t we all just stuck with what we got? In any case, he was behind a gate and I was out in the world and we’d exchanged something – some cum, some cash, and some grit. And if the world wasn’t any more fair because of it, well, it wasn’t our fault.